I think that would be true here in WA. also. We had a system where a supervisor signed our time sheets on Friday at the end of a shift. Unless OT work had been canceled and communicated in person or by phone then it was optional. Sometimes a supervisor would be unavailable to communicate that but it was then his supervisor's responsibility. Sometimes that even broke down because supervisors were routinely unavailable. OT was usually built into the project budget and generally available. Because it was a gov't agency usually nobody was very concerned about it unless there were yuge labor miscalculations in the budget. That happened because of poor management.